1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a towing system for pulling skiers and boarders. More particularly, the present invention relates to a fixed or portable towing system for pulling skiers and boarders. More particularly, the present invention relates to a fixed or portable, towee-controlled towing system for pulling skiers and boarders.
2) Description of Related Art Including Information Disclosed Under 37 CFR 1.97 and 1.98
There are numerous athletic and recreational activities available which need or can use a towrope to pull a person, a towee, holding onto a handle connected to a towrope. Examples of these include waterskiing, wakeboarding, wakeskating, kneeboarding, surfing, snow skiing, snowboarding, longboarding, mountainboarding, skateboarding, tubing, sledding, rollerblading, rollerskating, etc. Conventional technology requires assisted operation by another person other than the towee through the use of a navigable vehicle or towing machine such as; a boat, a jet ski, a snowmobile, a high-speed winch, or a large, pulley system that is expensive, fixed (i.e., not mobile), and requires one or more additional people to operate, such as the systems found at a wakeboard and waterski cablepark, two-tower cablepark, or downhill ski area. As a result, a person is not able to participate in these towing activities without the assistance of others nor without going to commercial facilities that provide these services.
Various types of operator-dependent towing systems have been devised to eliminate the need for a water, land or snow craft to tow the skier or boarder. One such operator-dependent towing system is disclosed in U.S. application Ser. No. 11/544,337, Publication number: US 2008/0083363 A1 Filing date: Oct. 6, 2006 (published Apr. 10, 2010) (L. Adam Hart, applicant), which discloses that a towee may be pulled by a stationary motor connected to a spool which winds a rope with a handle for the towee to hold, wherein an operator controls the speed and braking. The aforementioned disclosure of an operator-dependent towing system circumvents the need for a dry-land vehicle, snow vehicle or watercraft in motion to pull the towee, but does not eliminate the obligation to have a dedicated-operator control the towing of the towee, thus the towee cannot independently control the towing processes of start, stop and speed adjustment.
An aim to the present invention is to provide a towing system which is stationary relative to the towee, and allows for the towee to independently control the towing processes of start, stop and speed adjustment. There are two independent modes for controlling these processes; a pull-to-start mode and remote control mode.
It is a further aim of the present invention to provide dependent modes that function in parallel with the independent modes to control the start, stop and speed adjustment processes with a dedicated-operator. There are two dependent modes for controlling the towing processes; an on-board control mode and a remote control mode.
Still a further aim of the present invention is to allow the towee to easily move and relocate a mobile ski towing system to different locations. There are two modes of transportation; a manual-pull mode, a tow hitch mode.